


Onigiri

by theDah



Series: Tumblr prompts / events [10]
Category: Rurouni Kenshin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 09:50:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16910691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theDah/pseuds/theDah
Summary: She smiled grimly and raised her voice. “What are you doing, Himura-kun?”





	Onigiri

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Women of Rurouni Kenshin Week 2016, published in Tumblr at the time and now finally cross-posted here. :)  
> Women of Rurouni Kenshin Week, Day 6 - Tertiary Characters Day  
> Prompt: Support  
> Characters: Okami-san / The innkeeper, Kenshin Himura  
> Setting: Canon, Sometime between 1863-1864 in the remembrance arc  
> Word count: 1259  
> Notes: Thank you @chierafied for your help. You fix my grammar mishaps into readable English and it’s a gift that I can’t ever repay. <3

The innkeeper known to most as Okami-san was in the middle of that morning’s first cup of tea when she saw movement in the backyard.

 _What on Earth?_  No one in the inn was supposed to be awake at this early hour. The serving girls wouldn’t rise for a while yet and even the most drunken Choshuu men had come back from their night’s entertainment hours ago.

Okami frowned and rose slowly to her feet, mindful of her aching joints and weak knees. Her teacup in hand, she padded out to the porch to observe the slight form dancing in the shadows of early dawn.

 _Ah, but of course._  She smiled grimly and raised her voice. “What are you doing, Himura-kun?”

Spinning around like a startled deer, the boy’s eyes widened in surprise. “Okami-san! I, ah – I was just practicing…”

“In the small hours of the morning?” Okami’s eyebrow quirked.

“Uh, well…” He looked aside, his body tense and screaming of embarrassment. Chastised, he sheathed his sword. “I couldn’t sleep, that’s all,” he muttered.

“Clearly.” Okami scoffed fondly.  _That boy…_

Shaking her head, she upturned her tea onto the flower patch by the doorway. No use drinking a bitter drink, already gone cold. “Come in when you are done with your practice. I’ll brew you a cup of tea.”

The boy was so startled he couldn’t get a word out of his mouth before she left. The inn’s floorboards creaked comfortingly as she padded back to the kitchen, grabbing a few logs from the basket next to the stove and adding them to the fire. She filled the teapot with fresh water from the bucket and set it to boil. After all, there was little a pot of good, warm tea wouldn’t fix.

Still, the boy’s sleeping trouble was becoming worrying, she mused thoughtfully.

Unlike the rest of the Choshuu men, who spend their free time whoring and drinking like sponges, Himura-kun never took time to relax. He was always so tense and quiet, never quite getting proper rest. His futon remained unused, rolled in the corner of his room gathering dust as he curled up to sleep in the corner of his room. The boy’s erratic working hours certainly weren’t helping the matter. The boy could stay at work until the middle of the night, only to catnap whenever the exhaustion caught up to him.  

Come to think of it, when had she last seen the boy joining the other men for breakfast or lunch?

Okami frowned and took the rice kettle, pouring it half full of water and setting it to boil. Gathering a bowl of rice from the storeroom sack, she began washing it in the sieve with methodical movements. Her gnarled fingers and aching joints would pay for this stupidity later, she knew.

Yet, she remembered how her own son had been at that age, how he had eaten like his life depended on it.

It wasn’t healthy for Himura-kun to skip meals like that.

When the floorboards creaked with soft steps, Okami was patting the boiled and softened rice into simple onigiri. A jar of her homemade pickled plums sat at the counter for the filling. Pressing the handful of rice into a firm ball, she smiled and called out, “The kitchen, Himura-kun! Don’t tell me you forgot.”

A moment later a hesitant shadow appeared in the doorway, staring at her with those fey pale eyes. In the oil lamp’s light, his hair glinted as if it had been gilded red with blood.

“Um, but the men aren’t allowed to come here…?” He said hesitantly, shuffling his weight from one foot to another.

Such unnatural colors, just like those damn foreigners’ that had claimed her son a thief and demanded his life as a reparation. Okami closed her eyes, gathering all the hateful spite the memories roused and buried it under the innkeeper’s manners. She smiled, and glanced at the boy. “If I invite you, you are welcome anywhere in my inn. Now sit down, I’ll be with you soon.”

Awkwardly, the boy made his way to the kitchen’s low worktable, kneeling beside it.

Okami took the few onigiri she had gotten ready on a plate and set them before him. In silence, she fetched the tea and two cups, then sat across from him, serving for him first as the manners dictated, before filling her own cup. The boy stared at her, then at the plate like he didn’t quite know what to think.

She gave him a pointed look. “Eat up. It’s just rice balls filled with pickled plum.”

Hesitantly, he took one and nibbled at it, swallowing with difficulty.

Okami huffed, cradling the teacup in her hands to ease the pain in her joints. Already she felt somewhat silly for having gone out her way to cook the traditional, simple meal her own son had enjoyed. Of course a young samurai like Himura-kun would have gotten used to different standards than mere innkeeper’s family had been able to afford.

“Um… Thank you, Okami-san.” Himura-kun murmured, pulling her out of her thoughts. He was holding the barely touched onigiri awkwardly. “This is very good. It’s just… “

Okami raised her eyebrow in annoyance. “It’s what? Spit it out, boy.”

He shrunk under the weight of her temper, whispering softly, “I just… Lately, anything I eat tastes like blood. It’s why I can’t sleep, either. The blood and the screams of the men I kill, they follow me everywhere I go.”

“…Oh.” Okami murmured, a terrible understanding dawning on her. Because right then, shirking from her gaze, he wasn’t just a samurai Katsura-san had requested her to hide in her inn. Nor was he the assassin people rumored him to be, a rumor she was inclined to believe to be true having cleaned and mended his clothes. No, right now he looked terribly young and sad – just a boy, really. A child similar of age that her own grandchildren might be now, had her son lived long enough to grant her one to dote on.

“Nevertheless.” Okami forced herself to smile. “You must eat. How on earth are you going to grow tall if you skip meals? Do you want to stay slender as a girl your whole life?”

“Um…” The boy balked, rather horrified by the notion. “Er, no…?”

“You don’t sound very sure.” Okami grinned, pushing herself to her feet. “Now eat up. I’ll make you another plate and then you will go to bed. Belly full of food, sleep shouldn’t evade you any longer.”

“But, but…”

“No buts, Himura-kun.” Okami said firmly, utterly charmed by his startled expression. “Take a bite and swallow. No matter the taste, eating should be simple enough a task for a smart young man like you. And in the future, whenever you feel hungry, you will come to the kitchens, alright? I’ll let the girls know to prepare you something to eat no matter the hour.”

He gaped at her for a moment, then finally nodded meekly. “Yes, Okami -san.”

He looked down at the rice ball in his hands and took a good bite. He chewed long and swallowed with a grimace. Yet, this time he didn’t glance at her before taking another bite.

 _Good boy._ Okami nodded fondly, a warmth spreading in her chest.

Who cared about aching joins? No, compared to this, to being able to do something meaningful for a child… a little bit of pain was nothing. Smiling, she scooped more rice into her gnarled hands.

 


End file.
